Good Night, World

Written by Willa Perlman

Illustrated by Carolyn Fisher

Simon and Schuster/Beach Lane Books

June 2011

 

The sun is setting,

darkness is falling,

and from east to west,

all across the land,

the world is getting

ready for bed.

 

Join a young boy 

and his high-flying friend

as they travel the Earth

and bid good night

to our magnificent spinning planet.

 

 

Praise

Kirkus, June 1, 2011

"A youngster settling into bed ponders a curious fact: 'Elsewhere

in the world it's light,/ It's morning there, but here it's night.'

This leads him to imagine the bird on the window sill flying

around the world to say goodnight to everything. Beginning with

stars and planets, passing through deserts, mountains and oceans,

bidding goodnight to rain forests and animals far away, the bird

comes closer and closer to home, to the child's own street and 

house, yard animals and, finally his siblings and friends. 'Good

night, world,/ as darkness brings.../SWEET DREAMS to every 

living thing.' The dreaming child curls up with a stuffed rabbit

and the bird. Fisher's slightly surreal mixed-media illustrations

on double page spreads combine painted patterns, textures and

surprising colors. An oryx bounds across a marbled pink-and-blue

desert. Greenish whales cavort in breaking Hokusai-inspired waves,

midnight blue and capped with white against a pink sky. On one

spread, trees are drawn as crayoned triangles: on another, a single

leaf, apparently collage, forms the body. There is much to see and

think about in the illustrations for this simple bedtime rhyme.

Fittingly, the text concludes with a list of ways to say goodnight

in 16 languages, written in appropriate scripts and including

pronunciations. A sweet dream, indeed."